I found that default template Cocoa project containts i386 arch in build settings. But in general I develops for osx 10.6+(10.7). Is i386 required option or not?
Any Mac that can run 10.7 can run a 64-bit app. If your app is 64-bit only, then some Macs built before 2007, with a Core 1 processor, won’t be able to run it. If i386 support is easy, there’s no reason to turn it off, and it will be easier if you support it from day 1. But any Mac built in the last four years should support 64-bit.
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Can I run a preference pane built using ARC and x86_64 (10.9 SDK) and targeted for 10.6 under 10.6 or will it only run under 10.8 or later? I keep getting "GC compatibility mismatch errors" when I try to launch it under 10.6 and 10.7
64-bit preference panes in 10.6 and 10.7 have to use garbage collection, not ARC. See this question for more.
You will have to download an older version of Xcode (5.0.2, I think) that supports Garbage Collection in order to build the 64-bit pref-panes.
Or you could build a 32-64-bit prefpane, which the older OSes will attempt to load the 32-bit one after failing to load the 64-bit one. Note that you will need to either compile it using manual retain count, or have some bridging functions to handle retain and release.
I usually use a computer on snow leopard to create apps compatible upwards but I'm on holidays at the moment and only have my macbook pro with Mavericks on it.
I need to send an app to a customer who's on snow leopard (or lion)
Is this possible? Can I create a compatible app building it on Mavericks.
I'm not an expert on building on Mac, but I believe it is/can be. If the target computer also has Qt 5, then it should work.
There used to be "Universal" binaries that would work with both Intel based Macs and with Power PC based macs... I've seen that break on my Mavericks install for some things that were built with a "Universal" binary. It might be just a problem with that one or two programs I was running.
The default compiler for Mavericks and Qt 5 is clang64, and so it should work on any 64 bit Intel based mac. Make sure you are using the commandline deployment tool for qt mac deployment, so that all the dylib's get included in your app package.
Hope that helps.
I am using XCode 3.2.6 on an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6, to build a fairly simple app that needs to be able to run under OS 10.4 on a PPC-based Mac, in addition to modern Intel-based Macs.
Under the project settings, I only see options for 32-bit Intel, 64-bit Intel, and Standard (32/64 Intel). Should I be seeing a "Universal Binary" entry here?
I don't have any problem running it under 10.4 on an Intel Mac. I was careful not to use features that don't work under 10.4, and I think I set the project settings correctly to allow it to be backward-compatible to 10.4. It's just that I can't figure out how to get it to compile for PPC.
I'm flailing around, trying to figure out how to build a universal binary, and I think I'm probably just missing something obvious. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
You don't have to choose one of the predefined settings for the Architectures build setting. You can choose "Other..." and then explicitly enter a list of architectures like ppc, i386, x86_64.
By the way, there are extra tricks if you need to run on G3s: You must use GCC 4.0 and the 10.4 SDK.
I am trying to build a universal binary for a project at work, but I can't seem to get Xcode set up properly to do so.
I am familiar with the Apple Documentation regarding this, but apparently I am not reading it correctly.
The Xcode build options in question seem to be:
Architectures
Base SDK
C/C++ Compiler Version
Mac OS X Deployment Target
In my settings I have the following Valid Architectures: i386 ppc ppc64 ppc7400 ppc970 x86_64.
If I use the following options, I get a binary with i386 and ppc970:
Architectures: i386 ppc
Base SDK: Mac OS X 10.5
C/C++ Compiler Version: GCC 4.0
Mac OS X Deployment Target: Mac OS X 10.5
I have several questions about this:
Why ppc970 and not ppc7400 (or simply ppc)?
What is the difference between the ppcs (ppc, ppc64, ppc7400, ppc970)?
How do I get a binary for any ppc?
Apparently, I need a binary with ppc7400 to work on the Mac Mini we have for testing. The Mini has a G4 and is running OSX 10.5.8. From what I can tell, a binary with ppc7400 works but not one with only ppc970.
I have tried several combinations of the above build options, including changing my Base SDK to 10.4u. The above configuration is the only one that even builds. Other builds fail, often because of not recognizing header files or clearly available #defines. For example, if I change my compiler to gcc 4.2, I get errors searching for stdarg.h because of the #include_next directive and no clear path to correct headers. If I drop my Base SDK to 4.0, #define FSIZE long long is no longer recognized despite not changing any includes.
I'd really appreciate any insight you can give me on this.
EDIT UPDATE
Thanks for the info. I understand the flags now. But I get a strange result.
These are my build flags now:
GCC_VERSION = 4.0
MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET = 10.4
SDKROOT = macosx10.5
GCC_MODEL_TUNING = G3
This produces object file (.o) that have arch 'ppc' as shown by lipo. All the included libs and frameworks are either 'ppc' or 'ppc7400' (again as shown by lipo). But, the final build is 'ppc970'.
I have gone over this very carefully to ensure I got everything. Can anyone think of a reason for the ppc architecture differences?
I've even gone so far as to create a new project (Hello World) and link it to all the libs and frameworks of the first project. Hello builds as 'ppc' not 'ppc970'.
This just makes no sense to me.
ppc970 == G5. If you need to support as far back as the G4 then just build for ppc7400.
Rather than messing with individual architecture settings, though, you can just select 32-bit Universal (or Standard (32/64-bit Universal), if appropriate) from the popup menu, and that should give you what you need.
In target settings make below changes..
GCC_MODEL_PPC64 = NO
i.e., uncheck “Use 64-bit integer Math”.
Enabling will turn on 64 bit. So it will be G5 onwards..
I have a MacBook Pro with a 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and I'm using gcc (i686-apple-darwin9-gcc-4.0.1) to compile executables which I can run ok on my own machine. Recently someone tried to run my application on a PowerBook G4 and got a 'Bad CPU type in executable' error, which I think is because their CPU is PPC rather than Intel (and also possibly 32 bit not 64 bit)
Is it possible for me to produce binaries that will work across all the various Mac architectures using gcc, and if so what options do I use?
Look at the -arch parameter for gcc Apple docs
You need to look into "Universal Binaries" this is the name given to an app file which runs, with no dynamic recompilation, on both ppc and i386 architectures. As you know .app files (Mac Executables), are in fact archives, which contain, within them, the actual binary application. These can be partitioned in such a way that both the i386 and ppc binaries are contained.
To save yourself and your users future headaches, you should bite the bullet and set up your project in Apple's Xcode. If you follow the defaults, Xcode can take care of all the details of building for multiple architectures, like using the proper -arch flags for gcc, using the correct SDK libraries, compatibility with previous OS X versions, etc etc.